Erik is a baseball fan who has been attending baseball games and snagging baseballs regularly since 2008.

8-11-09 Progressive Field

Today was a weird and unconventional snagging day. I would catch zero balls off the bat, and only snag one ball thrown by a player. Yet, somehow I managed to break double digits.

I was the second one in line when I got to the gate. About fifteen minutes before the gates were to open, the old woman in front of me spared two of her friends, a father and his daughter, a little girl of about six years old. Little did I know that the daughter would go on to snag 12 balls of her own today, and assist me with three of my snags.

When the gates opened, I ran in to the bleachers and immediately found ball #1 about six rows back. I continued towards the visitor bullpen, and found ball #2 sitting in an aisle seat. I continued on towards the visitor bullpen and found ball #3 lying in the front row.

I wasn’t done searching. I walked over to the Indians bullpen and saw a ball laying in the front row. There were people standing in front of it, but hadn’t noticed it laying underneath the chair behind them. I walked in the second row, bent down, and picked up ball #4. It was extremely water-logged. I tried to write ‘433’ on it, but it was just too wet. I’ll have to wait until it dries out to re-label the ball.

When I picked up ball #4, I immediately noticed ball #5, which was about fifteen feet out, on top of the Indians bullpen.I went to work. I tossed my glove out and pulled it in, knocking the ball a good ten feet or so closer. I took out my ‘Cleveland Stick,’ the collapsible six foot yard stick, and hooked the ball towards me. I reached over and grabbed the ball, for my fifth of the day. The father and daughter who were in line in front of me watched me make the snag.

After finding those first five balls, I tried to play for home run balls. STATISTICS:Game: 12 balls (4 hit, 1 thrown, 7 device)Season: 275 balls (141 hit, 85 thrown, 49 device)Games: 57 games (5 of which didn’t have BP)Average: 4.82 balls per gameCareer: 441 ballsStreak: 72 consecutive games attended with at least 1 ball snagged.Attendance: 21,870

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5 Comments

Progressive is an awesome stadium tho.
With the towering scoreboard and the video screens in the outfield fence it is as good as they get sometimes.
I know the two times I was there, the spot just to the right of the visiting Bullpen was a hot zone for balls.
Not sure if you are staking out the high leftfield, or sitting in center by the Ford SUV.
I always had fun in that park.

Erik –
It must be nice to Ballhawk with a crowd of less than 20,000! I am sooooo jealous! I mean don’t get me wrong whether I have to deal with 20,000 or the usual 40,000 in Anaheim I know I will get a ball or 3 but it would be nice to have a couple of easy days with 7-10 baseballs!

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